Zap-Map, the Bristol-based app that helps electric vehicle users find public charging points, has powered-up its senior management team as it prepares for further growth, including a drive into international markets.
Richard Bourne, who joined in January 2021 as interim CEO, has been appointed to the role permanently while Nigel Pocklington, CEO of renewable electricity supplier Good Energy, Zap-Map’s majority owner, becomes its chair.
He takes over in that role from Good Energy founder Juliet Davenport, who has now stepped down from the Zap-Map board.
Zap-Map was launched in Bristol in 2014 by Ben Lane and Melanie Shufflebotham with a mission to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and help the drive towards zero carbon mobility.
Its app helps EV drivers search for public charge points, plan journeys and pay for EV charging across multiple networks.
Chippenham-headquartered Good Energy snapped up a 12.9% share in Zap-Map’s parent company Next Green Car three years ago, later increasing its stake to 50.1%.
It’s app now has 660,000 downloads and hundreds of thousands of actively engaged users a month.
Over the past year it has launched its Zap-Map Plus and Premium subscription services, including support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, while its leading cross-network simple payment solution Zap-Pay now has nine networks signed up, with Osprey, ESB and char.gy live and new launches including MFG EV Power and GeniePoint, coming shortly.
It is also to launch a commercial partnership with world leader in business payments Fleetcor for integration in its Allstar fleet payment platform.
In his new permanent role, Mr Bourne, pictured above, will lead the execution of Zap-Map’s strategy, including the on-going development of its core products as well as international expansion, with an overarching mission to ‘make charging simple’ for the next 10m EV drivers.
Mr Bourne has a track record of developing and executing sophisticated and disruptive go-to-market strategies that deliver high revenue growth.
Zap-Map’s board is now made up of Mr Pocklington and Good Energy non-executive director Tim Jones and Good Energy director of corporate strategy Charlie Parry along with its co-founders.
Mr Pocklington, pictured right, said: “Zap-Map has built an incredible leading position in an exciting and rapidly growing EV market in the UK.
“It plays a crucial role in Good Energy’s strategy and it has a vital role to play in the wider decarbonisation of transport.
“In the past year Richard has done an excellent job working alongside the Zap-Map senior leadership team to put in place a strategy for growth, as a board we are now looking forward to supporting the team in delivering it.”
Mr Bourne added: “The past year has seen great progress in the adoption of electric vehicles and as the EV revolution accelerates even faster, Zap-Map’s core mission of making charging an EV as simple as possible has never been more important. From continuing to focus on the EV driver experience, delivering on our commercial partnerships for payments and fleets through to international expansion, the coming years will be very exciting for Zap-Map.”
